


Sixty Years After a Choice

by orphan_account



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: 100-1000 Words, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Fantasy, Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-06
Updated: 2008-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-08 01:37:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been sixty years since Middle-Earth was saved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sixty Years After a Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Written on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing and totally a political allegory, even if Tolkien claimed his work never was.

Sixty years had passed since Gandalf's heroism saved Middle-Earth. Mordor, a constant reminder even now, lay in the east, black and smoldering and lifeless, a pockmark upon the land.

They said it was the blood of the dead that had caused it, the acid of orc blood and men's blood and beasts' blood; or the fire, the terrible fire that had razed the land to the ground and spread far in the south, ravaging ground already baked by sun, demolishing towns and villages of men who had stood with Sauron. And someone would always say, no, it's none of that, the land was poisoned by Sauron's reign, the battle of Cormallen didn't make this happen. And people would nod fearfully. Of course.

Middle-Earth had been saved, and not by some half-baked plan that had one in a million of chances of succeeding. Logic prevailed, logic and the ethics of gain, as Lord Elrond was reputed to have said often.

Things were better now. There were no roving bands of brigands, and hardly any cowardly attacks against the nations. Wealth flowed to the worthy, and the poor were kept at bay. The good people were safe. There was order. Peace.

There were the slaves, but slavery was better than leisure to the poor; better than the punishments reserved for the ignoble in leisure. And it helped rebuild the land, rebuild it better than it had been before.

Some nations hadn't been able to survive in the new times, but that was only the law of nature, the law of survival. Surely nothing to feel sorry about. Elves became greyer and greyer, or left altogether, for which they'd been prepared all along. Dwarves turned inwards, deep into the ground, and kept their own peace. And hobbits, once doomed to extinction, were now protected, a rarity, fenced in the Shire, or in the cities as special servants, jesters and fools, and masters of pipeweed. Surely a proof of kindness, of the goodness of the new times.

Other races soared, the men, especially, but also goblins and balrogs. They were beautiful, really, the balrogs, as they blazed across the night sky. Once Sauron's creatures, they had now been redeemed. They kept the peace.

The people had much to be thankful for, under the rule of Gandalf the Black.


End file.
